


The Sun's Moonlight

by LW_Gomes



Category: NINE PERCENT (Band), 乐华七子NEXT | NEX7, 偶像练习生 | Idol Producer (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst, Character Death, Fairies, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Sun X Moon, Vampires, star-crossed lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-15 00:51:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16923486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LW_Gomes/pseuds/LW_Gomes
Summary: The first time they met, neither of them realized what was truly happening.Zhengting was a friend of a friend, an acquaintance he met because Ziyi was way too friendly with everyone. Xukun didn’t think anything of it when they shook hands and his fingers started sweating. And, if Zhengting’s throat felt a bit clogged that day, his hands a little colder than usual, than that didn’t mean anything either.It wouldn't be long until the truth would present itself to them, but it would be much longer until they realized what it actually meant - maybe even be too late.





	The Sun's Moonlight

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!  
> So, another Idol Producer story over here. This story was inspired by a [prompt](https://twitter.com/zhuzhting/status/1061920722270904320) I saw on twitter. I hope I did it justice and, honestly, most of the story just flew right out quite quickly, so it might not be as detailed as usual, but I hope it will be enjoyed all the same. It's not very long, but I did want to finish it as soon as possible.  
> I interpreted their characters as influenced by the situation and who they embody. In Xukun's case, as a vampire, I envisioned him as being influenced by the shadows (and consequently the night, in the moon's reign). In Zhengting's case, as a sun fairy, that meant light and brightness (therefore, the day, in the sun's reign). I hope that explains the Sun-Moon analysis in the story. Hopefully you don't find that too out of character, but I apologize either ways.  
> Anyways, please keep in mind that my first language is not English, so I am always open to pointers in case I got anything wrong. Don't feel shy to tell me about typos or possible mistakes.  
> Also, I always appreciate criticism or compliments so that I know how this is going, so if you feel like it, please tell me in the comments, the feedback will always be appreciated! I'd also happily answer any questions that may arise.  
> Thank you for the attention and happy reading!

The first time they met, neither of them realized what was truly happening.

It was a cloudy day, but still bright enough that the lightness of the sun seeped in from behind the clouds, soft and controlled. Zhengting was a friend of a friend, an acquaintance he met because Ziyi was way too friendly with everyone. He didn’t think anything of it when they shook hands and his fingers started sweating. Ziyi was not a vampire like himself, but he too was a being of the shadows and cautious like one, and him introducing them meant Zhengting was worthy of his friendship at least.

Still, he couldn’t help the heaviness that coddled him every time they saw one another. It was weird, because he knew he liked the other man. He was fun and kind and silly in the best of ways. Beautiful too, like an unreal painting that came to life in too vibrant colors and soft mesmerizing strokes. And bright, extremely bright – and maybe that was the problem, or the solution, because Xukun hadn’t seen the sun in over five lifetimes and he could finally feel the sun rays in his skin again.

So, he ignores it. The signs. All of them. Even those he notices, he pushes to the back of his mind and reasons that “Ziyi is fine near him, so he is no threat”, although he knows they are different. Because, as it is, Ziyi clearly wasn’t careful enough. Not when it came to Xukun.

In any case, nothing like that matters when Zhengting still looks bright as ever near him. His hands shake from the struggle of bearing the heat, even if it’s strange in a day with so much mist, but he still shakes them with the older boy. The other’s fingers are burning as they melt against his own in a soft embrace, and they both pretend not to flinch even as they look away and cradle their arms around themselves, trying to hide the shock that the clashing thermic sensations gave them.

They talk for the whole afternoon until, finally, night comes and Xukun starts breathing the slightest bit easier. Not as comfortable as usual, but enough that confidence grows in him that he’d just been feeling under the weather and that it all had no meaning. Opposite him, Zhengting seems to finally feel winter closing in, suffocating like the crumbling clouds screaming in the sky as they cried upon them, flashing angrily all the way to highlight his tired expression. Xukun asks if he’s alright, wonders for a second on the coincidence before letting it be, and accepts it when Zhengting says he always feels chilly in the evenings.

And if Zhengting’s throat felt a bit clogged that day, his hands a little colder than usual, than that didn’t mean anything. He’d always caught colds very easily after all.

* * *

When it comes to finding out the truth, it was neither done by Zhengting nor Xukun, but Justin. Of course it was, no matter how much the elders liked to joke, the witch was very perceptive. When he said it, it was almost like an offhand remark, but the cautious worry shining in his eyes, the tense but satisfied curve of his lips, betrayed how certain of himself he was.

_\- You guys are always sick around one another. Quite a funny coincidence, isn’t it?_

No, it wasn’t funny. At all.

It was obvious once they had it displayed in front of them. People say lies only bring misfortune, but Xukun believes truth brings just as much hurt as its opposite. The way his shadow stretched miles longer when Zhengting was around, the way he felt slightly blinded for a few seconds when their gazes met, the way his heart beat in his chest so undoubtedly human even when that was the last thing he could claim to be. And his smell. The irony smell of blood hidden behind a layer of fire that suddenly started making sense. And it was ridiculous, because now that he knew it, he still wanted to drown in its heat.

He’s taking it too lightly, he knows. They both are.

He sees it in the way Zhengting still takes a step closer and chokes on the lack of air every time they meet, and how he tries to discreetly massage his own temples being hammered by a headache that everyone knows is due to the pressure of the room around him and not because of stress. Xukun still never says anything, and neither does the elder, because, in the beginning, they didn’t really think it mattered.

So, maybe Zhengting had to try and dowse in water the burning embers of love inside of him, and take a rain check in more than a couple dreams he had planned, but he thought that had no consequence as long as he had Xukun. And Xukun thought the same. They’d be okay, if they didn’t let their souls go and seek what they truly wanted. Keeping a reign on their hearts wouldn’t be easy, but neither had their lives been up to that point, and they’d survive this war as well. They just had to accept it. That maybe they were indeed perfect, but never meant to be. That maybe meeting had been a mistake, although one they couldn’t bring themselves to regret. Or abandon.

So, they allow themselves to meet in the middle. A very fine line where they clash but don’t perish. Where his darkness is enough to make Zhengting’s light shine brighter, and his fire is what it takes to make his shadows glimmer more invitingly. And it’s comfortable, but also terrifying, because they aren’t perfect. They take too much or too little. They let themselves go and act as if they aren’t imagining kisses when the other’s lips move, or craving to intertwine cold and burning fingers with one another until they are both neutrally warm – feeling less natural but more whole.

And they pretend and pretend and pretend.

Pretend they aren’t falling in love.

Pretend they don’t see how their selfishness is killing one another.

Pretend they don’t realize that they are killing themselves.

And, Xukun thinks, it’s about time he stopped pretending. There’s no need to do so when you already believe something to be worth it.

* * *

The sun was blinding.

Or, maybe, Xukun was the blind one, the naive one, for not running away from it the second it appeared in the sky, but he liked the warmth. There was something oddly beautiful about so much light coming from a single source, which made him smile even through the stinging tears of pain in his eyes.  It made him inconsequential, throwing his sense of self-preservation that he so valued out in the dirt.

The thing is that it was so ridiculously easy to fall in love with Zhengting. It was scary, honestly. Xukun couldn’t help but feel as if he’d been hit by a curse, enchanted so that he’d meet his ending sooner other than later. He’d never really liked his immortality, but that doesn’t mean he craved death in any way. He found happiness in the end, the little things that would anchor him, but now his anchor became two sided, like a knife that ignited his blood and made him melt from the inside out.

Of course, Zhengting was not nearly as bright as the sun. Of course not. He was a child of the sun, a part of its light and warmth and beauty, but merely a fraction just the same. Xukun thinks that, maybe, that’s why he didn’t fear going close to him as much as he did, why he didn’t think anything would come out of it: the sun hadn’t killed him before, how could the other?

But Zhengting had a thing his father never had to his advantage. Closeness. That’s what made his smiles light up like flames, and his eyes sparkle like fireworks, and his hands feel like a lick of fire against Xukun’s skin. And he knew that he other felt the same. That being with him was like throwing himself in a never ending eclipse or swimming at the bottom of a deep lake with his arms tied up. Still, when he feels scared of death, he only thinks about himself. He complains about how life is unfair, how he wants the whole world to end and burn if that’s what it takes. Wonders if Zhengting isn’t a demon wrapped in pretty package that came to take his soul and deliver it back to the moon, riding the world of his damned presence. Somehow, even through his doubts, the only thing that can bring him back from inside his mind is Zhengting’s presence, even when it hurt more than the sun ever could.

It was ironic, really.

* * *

Being with Ziyi was nothing more than commodity. The thing about them is that they’d always been close, so falling into something more intimate was expected and not nearly as scary as people liked to pretend. He knew Ziyi only wanted a companion, and he knew Ziyi knew he was in love with someone he could never have, so they navigated life together trying to escape the pain of loneliness.

It takes him a long time to realize his selfishness may have a price.

Actually, he never truly realizes. He understands later, from a selfish stand point, that it would also have a bad influence on him, when he starts feeling disgusted every time he looks in the mirror. Still, he never truly starts to wonder if it affects someone other than him. If maybe Zhengting loves him back the same way and this is the same as shattering his heart. Either ways, he believes it’s best to cut the roots of a poisonous relationship before it starts. If there was any hope, then maybe... But there isn’t. There is none and knowing that makes his solitude seem terrifying, even if he’s known it for so long.

Every night feels like being locked inside a room with infinitely far walls but no light, where he fears banging his body and getting hurt even if realistically he knows he can survive it until the morning comes. Fright, however, feels much like being scrutinized and glued on the ground, and he can’t make himself take another step into the unknown. Even if he craves the happiness he knows lies on the end of the shadows, he stays rooted into his stop with his limited experience, and that means: Ziyi. That means trying to fill the parts of himself that beg for affection with something that will never be enough, but that he forces his brain to believe can patch up the torn ends left behind when he became what he is today.

He thinks he wouldn’t be so afraid of a lost love hadn’t he been through it before. Losing his family, his lover, his _life_ , was a price that immortality could not compensate. Rather, when he thinks about it, this eternal cycle he finds himself in is very close to a curse. It makes him even more protective over his relations. Makes every friend, every choice, a thousand times more important than they’d be had he not understood the fact that he’ll carry these memories forever. In a life such as this, there is something morbidly beautiful about being in love with Zhengting.

He knows he won’t be able to stop loving him. Truth is, when he looked for Ziyi the first time, he had this silly hope that he’d be able to wipe the elder out of his mind, that the only reason he was thinking of him in the first place was because he’d gone too long with no one to care for. But it wasn’t so. The next morning he woke up with love bites that lacked love. All he wanted to do then was let himself fade away in the darkness, but death is cruel enough to refuse taking him, so he adapted. Since loving Zhengting is a variable he can’t quite figure out how to eliminate, he throws in a hundred other letters in between them both – letters that spell his best friend’s name – and that will hopefully  keep him protected from getting too close. That’ll hopefully avoid his heart from being broken.

And so he lives with the regret and the pain and the _relief_.

He’s not nearly as happy in the moments he spends in bed with Ziyi as in the moments he’s merely walking around with Zhengting, that’s a giver. He feels bad every time, knowing that maybe if he just tried he could have something with his love, even if fleeting, but he knocks that incessant part of his heart back because accepting the impossibility and dealing with it is easier. He knows the consequences of not doing so would he tragic.

Still, as he feels Ziyi’s hands light against his back and imagines warmth and love shadowed on his skin, all he feels are cold fingertips and a shiver riding up his spine. He excuses himself and locks the bathroom’s door, mirror reflecting centuries of strength let down in marks of weakness around his neck. He’s trembling as he kneels on the floor and heaves until, when he rises again, the toilet has red stains that even water can’t take away. His mouth tastes like death and pain and salted tears that are almost enough to hide the remaining hint of stale and cold blood. He breathes in.

He wishes he could try downing a glass of fire.

* * *

Zhengting was falling into darkness.

He knew it because his heart felt frozen inside his chest even if it had always been warm before. He also knows why it’s happening, and knows there’s no way of stopping his dimming light.

Truly, it’s not easy, reaching the sun. Even as one of his sons, it’s not as if he can just talk to it, but he still prays for it every night because the feeling he gets back is reassurance enough. Warmth, energy, light. That’s all he knew during his life, but the ever growing chill that accompanies him these days makes him desperate for any kind of connection to that past. And as this thread that ties him to the skies gets weaker, he thinks back to those nights where he slept over a bed of burnt flowers or cried out besides the scorched out carcass of a cute animal. _You love too much_ , his father would tell him as a whisper of unknown coldness in his mind, _you love too much and that is never good._

He used to disagree very vividly, even though the evidence was right beside him. He knew too much happiness and intensity made him burn brighter than the world could handle, knew he had never been strong enough to contain it inside himself before it could burst out, but still. How could such a good feeling be bad? It was what made his hands warm up the tree barks in the winter, and feet run through the evaporating water in the summer, and what made his eyes light up with life every time someone said they loved him back. And, even by those whose demise he had inadvertently caused, he had never been unloved.

Not until now.

Not until he forces the remaining strength he has through his eyes so that he can see the shadows around Xukun, and realizes that the reason it was so hard was because there was more darkness around him than usual. Not until he sees rough scratches on his back and bite marks on Ziyi’s neck and realizes that, if there is an equation of balance in this world, he is not on it. And it’s terrifying.

So much that, the night before it happens, Zhengting has a nightmare.

He wakes up with fear in his eyes that are blinded by the sun, burning brightly through his cold and bluish skin. In it, the sun overtook the moon as she lost one of her own, succumbing through the hands of fate, guided by his own. There, the sun shone brighter than before and burnt itself out, and Zhengting died with it. He doesn’t know if he’s afraid for himself, or if he craves losing himself into heat once again. More than that, however, he questions why he woke up that morning. Fairies are all about love, belief. If that love dies, there’s nothing left, and although Zhengting always believed he had enough for himself and half the world, he knew he’d failed at keeping that truth. He was afraid. His love wasn’t keeping himself alive, he knew, because he had no love left in his soul.

So whose was it?

* * *

They meet again and there is no unbearable heat this time, no fear or uncomfortable feeling. He feels hope bloom in his heart. Maybe the skies took pity on them, maybe they are blessing them with this chance and stopping nature from tearing them apart.

He never notices how the purple shade looks weird in Zhengting as it shadows his sunken skin, or how the corners of his lips are straining against his cheeks, crinkled eyes struggling to show some shine even though they’ve lost it all. He doesn’t notice how his darkness grows stronger and stronger and feeds off of the elder the same way he does, like a predator, sinking its teeth on the prey’s core and pulling, sucking, ripping their vitality until they – until Zhengting – falls down with nothing to hold him together but a weak body that will take too long to recover. And his darkness _keeps taking_. Keeps taking in the way he never does, with no regards or intention to stop before there’s no turning back. Without guaranteeing survival.

And he doesn’t notice.

Even as he gets closer and closer, overenthusiastic with the idea of maybe being able to pursue something he thought he’d never find again, he doesn’t see it. It’s right in front of him, but he’s blind, a fool, like all people in love when they want to believe something impossible. Because their love was just that, but accepting it was also something Xukun could never do, so he takes the wisps of hope he finds and stuffs it into his heart to protect them. He locks them behind unbreakable chains and, when life shows him all the ways they could still slip out, he tapes over the cracks until his love is more of a cage than a shelter, and pretends not to hear the truth. Not to see that this is worse, a thousand times worse. Not to see that understanding that there was never any hope to begin with, that he created a castle without an owner inside his mind, is still better than keep filling with riches a room that will never protect them before they rust and fall apart.

Hence, he unconsciously allows himself to remain unseeing. He purposefully allows himself to grow used to the beating of his own heart, eager to love and feel anything at all, disregarding the curious part of his brain that wonders daily where all this power is coming from.

He doesn’t allow himself to think about that. What he does is take a step closer and throw an arm around Zhengting’s neck, lips fluctuating close to his, but not enough. He wants to end the distance, but doesn’t dare yet. They have all the time in the world and he can wait until they are both ready - until he is calm enough with the prospect of having his dreams at his fingertips that he doesn’t mess them up. Instead, he takes a step back and grabs Ziyi by the back of his neck, pulling him into the distance so that he had a way to tone down the nervousness, and ignorant to the coldness he leaves behind. As he walks, he counts heartbeats to calm his mind until Zhengting’s disappears in the distance behind him. Ziyi counts with him, fingers tapping on his shoulder, and they keep at it even after he’s stopped listening.

The silence sounds looming.

* * *

The sun is dying.

The sun is dying and Xukun hates the sun, so he should feel glad, but the spark of love left in his unloving heart stops him.  There’s cold all around him, but it seems to come from inside and he doesn’t understand it. He pulls Ziyi in, but all it does is make it harder to stand he feeling arising, so he leaves. He feels a guilt that has no starting point and also seems to have no end. Almost like _he_ is dying as well.

The night falls and the moon rises, greeting him into his reign, but there is an enemy in the shadows and, for once, it’s not himself. He downs blood until he feels intoxicated and high. It tastes worse than usual, like dirt rubbing against his tongue, and he chokes more than once as it goes down but keeps it up because it warms his chilling bones.

And there you have it. Warmth. Or, better yet, lack of it.

He doesn’t know where the clarity comes from, how it starts making sense in his addled brain,  but suddenly his lost mind finds a way and he focuses on that, if only so that his thoughts won’t slip away from him. When he regains conscience, he’s in the middle of a street that rumbles underneath his feet like a dead volcano ready to erupt, an impossible mix of paradoxes. He is shivering as he gulps air in, and for a second he considers going back because none of it makes sense. He’s never heard of anyone acting like he is, or experiencing what he is, even in the throes of blood overdose, but he’s always been quite the sensitive one when it comes to feeling. It doesn’t always happen, mind you, but more than once has he woken up feeling pain and found that a friend had been hurt, or with a bad sensation in his chest that translated into the death of yet another one from his already fading clan.

Thus, he presses on and into the building, into the room, until Zhengting stares back at him with lifeless eyes and eyelashes speckled with frozen tears. For a second, the world holds its breath and he thinks, _oh, so this is what was wrong all this time_ , as he approaches the elder man. His knees dig into the mattress but he receives no answer. Finally, stupidly, he realizes what is happening. That he was the one to hold his breath. That Zhengting had never even been breathing in the first place. That such is the reason the room smells like death so intensely even his scent is like a festival of flowers in comparison.

He doesn’t know what to do, or why it’s happening. Why light itself has seemed to dim so much that only darkness remains, but he doesn’t have time to think and he feels himself getting distraught. His brain is confused, his teeth hurting from the hunt earlier, and it’s all not helping his case, coldness spreading out of him faster and faster as he loses himself into his sadness. Then, as he wretchedly reaches for the other in a crazy effort to touch him one last time, even if he kills the fairy for it, he hears a sigh.

His hand stings from where he’s touching the man’s face. He takes it away to see a mess of burnt skin and blood, but Zhengting has some color on his cheeks again from where they came into contact – not red like blood but rather pink like healthiness and beauty – and he is desperate for it to spread, so he stops thinking. Like he never knew pain before in his life. Like he still doesn’t know it.

So, Xukun reaches for the light and brings him into his embrace. His arms are heavy as he feels warmth and hotness and fire, burning through his skin and into his flesh, like the gust of a thunderstorm that doesn’t wait for you to take a breath before it takes it away and fills your bones in water. And his bones were crumbling, and his veins were burning, and his ears were ringing from the moon’s cries as he felt the pain everywhere, but in his arms. And he felt Zhengting, in his arms. Stirring, alive, and blinking up at him with eyes that shone red like the thick liquid spilling from his mouth. Just like that, it was worth it, and he didn’t mind burning anymore, not if it was for him.

And if Xukun’s last memory is of bloody lips against his own, stinging against his skin as they kill him softly, then no one says anything.

And if Zhengting’s tears were enough to put down the fire, but only after all there was left was heat and pain and ashes, then no one says anything.

After all, there’s no one in the world anymore, Zhengting thinks.

The sun weeps.

**Author's Note:**

> I've linked the prompt on the notes in the beggining, but in case it does not work, it goes as follows:
> 
> "zhengkun au where xukun is a vampire who can't stay in the sun and zhengting is a sun fairy who brings light everywhere with him. they meet somewhere in the middle, keeping enough space between themselves because zhengting's presence burns and xukun's darkness suffocates"  
> © zhuzhting


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